Donald Land

Position Title

Professor

Our goal is to understand the details of chemistry at interfaces, and specifically how changes in surface structure bring about changes in the chemistry and bonding of adsorbates. Interfaces play key roles in fuel cells, catalysts, microelectronics manufacturing, corrosion, wear, and waste remediation. In addition, interactions at the interface between biomedical implants and biological fluids play a deciding role in the assimilation of these devices. Microscopy and molecular kinetics studies of surface reactions are used to elucidate the relationship between structure and function in surface chemistry. We use a barrage of specialized techniques to analyze the outer-most atomic/molecular layer at interfaces. Because of the infinitesimal amount of sample, this field relies on recent technologies which probe only the surface region. Indeed, a substantial portion of our research includes development and refinement of techniques which provide time resolved information from surfaces.

T.E. Caldwell, I.M. Abdelrehim, and D.P. Land. Furan Decomposes on Pd(111) To Form H and CO plus C3H3, Which Can Dimerize to Benzene at 350 K. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 118, 907-908 (1996).